


When Aang Was

by MadameFluffnStuff



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: (This is my first go at writing Mai...apologies if she's OOC but I tried very hard with her), Aang (Avatar) Needs a Hug, Air Nomad Genocide (Avatar), Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Big Brother Sokka (Avatar), Big Brother Zuko (Avatar), Big Sister Suki, F/M, Found Family, Gaang (Avatar) as Family, Hurt/Comfort, Other, Protective Gaang (Avatar), The Gaang will walk backwards into hell for this airbean, Trauma doesn't go away, and protect him at any and EVERY cost, big sister Mai, fic request, little sister toph, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:55:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28056483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadameFluffnStuff/pseuds/MadameFluffnStuff
Summary: When Aang was hurting, he became a walking wound. His reflection turned into a stranger. His smiles got a bit bigger—his magician’s one-liner to hide his slight-of-hand—, but he couldn’t keep himself above water forever. Evenhesometimes forgot that he lost everything and everyone, and forgetting turned remembering into daggers through each of his lungs. It stole his air—his element, his last connection tothem....the Gaang have a few things to say about that.And Aang’s family would bedamnedif they let him bleed alone.
Relationships: Aang & The Gaang (Avatar), Aang/Katara (Avatar)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 81





	When Aang Was

**Author's Note:**

> Fic request from the lovely @demigodseameg16: _someone remembers Aang is technically, legally an orphan_
> 
>   
> ...imo sometimes Aang forgets, too, and forgetting that he lost everything and everyone makes remembering hurt that much more
> 
> (This fic was _highly_ inspired by a beautiful Yin and Yang photoset by @imreallyhereforkataang💕)

When Aang was happy, he talked really fast. His master’s tattoos lost meaning. He tripped over his own feet—grace _less_ but play _ful_ —and laughed like giggles were more vital than breathing.

He was an airborne contagion that no one could escape. His family were patient zero, and, almost four years after the war, his quest for world domination was nearly complete. Peace was proven with the smiles he nurtured in others, and his empire of friends and friendly acquaintances circled the globe a dozen times over.

Their symptoms of _Aang_ were chronic—their cheeks always hurt, their middles never stopped aching, he hid their breath behind hurdles of giggles and slap-fights about the absurd...

The list went on and on, just like the peel of his laugh and the warm feeling he left in his wake.

If only the world could see him when he curled up like a cat in its favorite sunny spot every time he lounged across the fuddy-duddy Firelord’s lap. If only the world could see him when Suki caught him using her good makeup—the expensive kind she saved for formal occasions—and the monstrosities he made of his and Sokka’s faces. If only the world could see him when he sent messages to Sokka saying they were from Toph demanding a rematch of whatever they were practicing lately.

Mai didn’t exactly help. She graded his antics with a rubric and gave him feedback, to boot. She refined his nonsense like a blade on a grindstone for greater impact and outcome every time.

The world _definitely_ saw him when he and his lifeline went out in public. He guided Katara down an invisible red carpet every time, and he announced his befuddled Moon’s presence without having to say a single word. He adored getting her flustered—his _Mighty_ Katara—and seeing the beautiful color she turned into. He especially loved the sharp smacks she swatted his shoulder with. He adored her puffed cheeks and her face’s valiant attempts to scowl at him. She hid in his arms from something that wasn’t embarrassment, and Aang kissed her hair at another mission accomplished.

But even if they were ever ‘cured’ of him, his family knew they would never be rid of him. Aang was a master of his craft. His hugs were blue ink, his understanding was his steady hand, and his shoulder to lean or to cry on was a thousand fine needles. His tattoos were unseen but brighter than the sunset’s reflection when the Ocean was in a good mood.

To the world, he was a cure, but, to his family, he was a vice. Neither his better half nor his siblings could shake his grip on them, no matter how hard they rolled their eyes and shooed him away. He saw their pursed lips and grumpy looks as something they wore and that he could take off of them. He found the cracks in their armor like he was a thief turning lock tumblers, and he dug his hands into where they hid their joy.

He was a purple pentapus in airbender robes clinging to their arms, their legs, and their backs. He was their goofy little brother and their grinning parasite, and they wouldn’t have him any other way.

They loved his smile, despite how badly it crippled them. His joy was so second nature that his good feelings became as essential as Mother Nature. The flowers weren’t pretty if Aang wasn’t smiling. He was their greatest weakness—the biggest, happiest, dorkiest chink in their armor.

May the Spirits help the next person who tried to kill him.

Katara would not be held back a second time.

Toph would find _someone_ who needed some punishment if she was left out of ‘the fun’ again.

(Sokka tracked the bastard down, and Suki caught him without—just _barely_ without—snuffing him out)

(Zuko held Aang’s head in his lap while Katara patched up what was broken and tugged his bleeding spirit back into him)

(None of them knew what to do when his fever hit critical. He started talking to people—children, mentors... _family_ —who had been dead for over a century. The six of them were worse than lost when their seventh begged for his old family to talk back to him. He was sorry. He was so, _so_ sorry. He missed them so much— _please_ , he missed them and he missed _home_ so _much_ —)

(When Aang was conscious two days later, Mai sat him down and taught him all that he didn’t want to know but all that he needed to learn about poisons)

* * *

...

Four years of healing were four years of silly smiles and cozy camp-outs in the Palace courtyard. Four years of new family were four years of new brothers and sisters discovering, together, what family really meant.

Four years of new family were four Fall seasons where and when nothing (seemingly) happened. Four years and four seasons of dead and dying things came and went like they were never there.

Four Fall seasons became four bundles of dead branches burned between Summer and Winter. A pile of ashes became a memory barely remembered and a nightmare never forgotten.

Four years and four fires were four times he slipped away, unseen, from the anniversary of the war that they ended. Four times he slipped away were four times left by himself with a feeling that was worse than alone.

Four temples and four Fall seasons were nothing more than marks on a map and a calendar.

In the room that Aang used to call _his_ in the home that he used to call _theirs_ was where he kept all of the ‘counts’. At first, he marked the things they missed, just tallies and names on the wall.

Four years and four Fall seasons meant four-thousand names and smudged scribbles of forgotten faces and places they might have thought were pretty. His hands wouldn’t stop shaking and what was left of his heart wouldn’t stop breaking as he carved chalky tattoos, like unhealed scars, into the wall—the one with the window overlooking the places where he struggled to remember playing _before_.

He didn’t know he was forgetting them until he started having trouble remembering them. The tallies were lives lost, the dashes were shadows without faces, and the names of his family—the names of his _old_ family…—decorated the head of the bed that he used to call _his_. 

He left them notes like they could read them and asked them questions like they might respond.

Four years and four Fall seasons meant nothing to him. He lost everything and everyone in the blink of an eye.

Aang tried not to stay at the temple, especially if he was alone. Thinking alone was dangerous. His thoughts were wild and threatened to burn him.

He made the mistake, once, of walking past the hidden hall that he and his friends—his _old_ family...—used when they sewed chaos into the weave of _their_ home. The hall was stuffed with fond memories but so poorly constructed—so _narrow_ —that it only allowed enough room for a one-way direction to and from the outside.

It was a charred hole with a sooty-black throat that greedily swallowed his shadow. The blackened stone was melted—glassy—and smelled like the instinct to _run_.

It wasn’t until Aang got back to his family—his _new_ family…—that he imagined his newest nightmare.

It wasn’t his new family’s fault. They weren’t the ones on the festival ride just to his left and _screaming_ into his ear.

Aang’s empty stomach turned inside-out, and he dry-heaved so hard that he couldn’t breathe. It was a strange feeling, struggling for air, having his element all around him but kept just out of his reach.

Those few seconds of breathlessness turned the ground black and the sky into dirt, but someone caught him before his knees buckled. Someone else was patting him from head to toe with tender touches that left no part of him unturned.

His family were worried sick—sicker than he felt. They asked him in a million different ways and in a million concerned voices if he was okay.

Aang struggled to smile for them. It took him four or so tries to get it right. He couldn’t do anything about his shaking, though.

“Can...Can we go home, now?” He whispered his trembling words like they were secrets never meant to be said aloud. He looked at them like a wounded animal limping back to its master—a stray tucking its tail but crawling closer, desperate, with a broken smile peace-offering and a fit of flinches at any sharp sound. The beating was inevitable, but he pleaded for the chance to feel something soft before he was kicked again. He leaned into Katara’s hand, and he flinched and pressed harder when she was warm and real and didn’t move away from him.

He was their goofy little brother and their grinning parasite.

Aang fought his struggle to smile for them, and he trusted his big brother to carry the whole of his weight. Zuko was warm and familiar, and his gentle squeeze was a promise to not let go; Katara’s worried touches and soft kisses were safe, and she swarmed around Aang like a mobile shield.

Aang sensed their tensing. They were his family, after all. He always had two fingers on their happiness’ pulse.

Their questions were a distressed tidal wave.

He didn’t stop smiling even when he closed his eyes.

He couldn’t tell if the hushed voices he heard were from his new family in front of him or from his old family behind him. Aang remembered...

Aang rearranged his lips into what he remembered a smile felt like.

“Please? C’n we...Can we g-go home?” He opened one eye and found both of Katara’s waiting for him. She was _horrified_ and concerned to tears, and she wasn’t the only one.

Aang almost sighed. His strength was bleeding out of him along with everything else. He struggled to keep smiling for her, and he struggled even harder to keep his eyes open. He flinched from the kicks that were their heartbroken looks, but he tried to give them a reason to smile. 

Zuko was really warm, though. And Katara’s hands felt really nice on Aang’s face.

The flame of his consciousness flickered—a candle left out in the rain.

“Please, K’tara?” He spoke without meaning to. It was an impulse, an instinct. It was the orphan and the last airbender crawling through the carnage and finally having a spot on the stage to speak.

Cold sweat beaded his brow, and frozen shivers shook his insides. He just wanted to go home, wherever or whenever that was. Everything was too blurry. He couldn’t remember anymore. 

Even his new family’s faces were blurry, now, and Aang’s element was torn out of him when his first choke on everything and everyone he lost freed the Oceans behind his eyes.

He just wanted to go _home_...

“ _...Please?_ ”

Aang’s voice was the last of him to break, and his family all flinched like they could feel it. His shattered pieces fell all at once and shredded everything he knew and loved.

He curled his fingers into Zuko’s robe to keep himself above water. He shook like something dead about to be churned to ash and carried away—a forgotten memory—on an indifferent passing breeze.

...

When Aang was scared, he talked too fast. His sunshine-warm smile lost meaning. He hugged like he was trying to hold onto something, and he laughed a sound that rang hollow—distorted—like an echo returning from far away.

Toph was the first to notice. His heartbeat was...off. He acted like he was surprised by their group hugs, but the evidence of feeling _anything_ was only skin-deep.

Aang was never happy. He didn’t get happy, either. Aang _was_ happy. He and the word meant the same feeling like how the sun would always mean warmth.

Katara noticed it next—nearly in the same moment. She had no seismic sense, but his kiss wasn’t laden with giggles and his heart didn’t try to beat out of his chest to get to hers when she hugged him.

Suki saw it but didn’t tell the others. She was an elite warrior trained for years in the art of stealth. Aang was the White Dragon and White Lotus tile all in one, but he had a terrible poker face.

Five years marked the start of a new quartet and the shedding of all things old to welcome all things new. They knew Aang loved the festival of the anniversary of the war that they ended, but something was different this time.

Sokka’s instincts saw it coming. Zuko’s hearing picked up on it, too.

Toph won him a prize—a plate of pastries trying to be fruit cakes. Aang greedily ate them and said that he loved them.

His shoulders shook and said that he missed them.

His lip trembled and said that they scared him.

Suki touched between his shoulders and guided him towards something called ‘volleyball’. It was a three-on-three game.

None of them realized until they picked teams that Aang was no longer with them.

It was a three-on-three game.

There were seven in their family.

Mai cursed and cut the net before it could become a fire hazard, and she was barely fast enough to save the netting from turning to kindling when Zuko pulled his hair and charred the sand.

They found him an hour later by following the echoing huffs of Appa’s soft sounds.

Appa held him like he had to chase and pin him down, but Aang held him back like he could never hold on tight enough.

…

Hawky was a master navigator and a tool of military purpose.

Hawky was also distracted when he stopped in the Fire Nation Palace on his way to Aang’s room.

Hawky had never seen a turtleduck before. He was domestic and curious even though the mother turtleduck chased him off like he was a massive predator.

And that was exactly how Sokka found his old bird—soaked and waddling for his life.

There was a message in his pack.

Toph threw open her door to find whoever was about to die from such a fast heartbeat _just_ as Sokka ran past, grabbed her, and sprinted them to the others.

Toph would have fought him if she wasn’t so confused.

Sokka didn’t cry that hard even at that time of year when some girl name Yue had to go away.

…

Hey, Gyatso!

I guess it’s been a hundred years, huh? That’s so weird to think about.

I’ve been meditating just like you taught me. Well, I think I’m doing it right. It’s hard to tell, anymore. I sit in front of the mirror to correct my stance, but it hasn’t felt right in a long time. It’s okay, though! I’ll figure something out. I’m sure there’s a prayer statue in one of the temples that’s still in one piece. I could always check in the mountains, too, but I don’t I can’t I’ll try to check the temples again, first.

A good friend told me yo the Air No all of the Guru Pathik said you’re not really gone, and I believe him.

It’s cold today. It rained, before, so new plants should be growing soon. You would really like it here.

Do you I I miss you. I try not to, but Guru Pathik said to let my emotions flow. He’s gone with you, though. It’s been two years, now.

I wish he He left befor Could you give him a hug from me when you see him?

I hope you don’t miss me, Gyatso. Missing people hurts a lot. I really hope you’re happy, Gyatso. I really, really do.

Please, please, please, don’t miss me.

I miss loved love you!

…

Hey, Gyatso

I have more family, now! You’d really like them. Katara could beat you at Pai Sho, for sure. I tried to show them how you swirled the gooey center of the fruit pies, but I don’t think I did it quite right. It’s hard to tell. I tried it a few times in the mirror, but, when I remember you doing it, I can’t see your hands anymore.

I’m trying, though! I’m trying!

Toph helped rebuild the statues in the temple. I don’t really know how, though. Mai and Zuko convinced me to stay with them and teach the schools how to host a dance while the others left on Appa.

The statues look great. They look almost life-like.

It’s been a hundred years, huh? I try not to That’s so weird to think about.

I can’t thi I don’t kno Please don’t miss me, Gyatso. I’ll write to you more so you don’t miss me. I promise. It’ll be okay. 

I can’t s Please, please, please, don’t miss me, okay? Please?

I loved y

My fathe

I loved you, Gy

I 

…

Wet scars like blood splatters littered the letters by the dozens and made Aang’s handwriting nearly illegible.

Katara couldn’t make herself read any more.

She was the last one to break.

Sokka had been the first.

The second she sat next to where their family cocooned him on the bed, he hugged her like she was the only thing keeping him from falling.

She had seen her brother cry before.

But Katara had never seen Sokka _weep_.

Missing fathers and fathers missing were scars that never quite closed.

Katara choked on years lost and years alone, and she barely felt their family huddle around them, blanketing them, protecting them from what they couldn’t see.

Sokka’s hand left his grip on her to search for someone who wasn’t there. Katara beat him to it, though. Her empty hands pawed her brother’s back and were only mildly tamed by Suki’s tighter hug.

Aang...

The worst part was the helplessness. It wasn’t like they could bring back the dead.

The second worst part was the guilt. He had been alone even when he was right with them.

The third worst part was admitting that they couldn’t heal him. He needed something stronger than stitches to mend his heart.

Sokka tensed and tried to get up with that bullheaded air of setting his mind on something, but he only collapsed further into Katara’s arms. Zuko held them tighter and hushed the both of them. He tried to distract them with a strategy or a plan of what to do.

“...What _can_ we do, Zuko?”

Zuko shut his mouth. Suki held them tighter. Toph sniffled and fisted Sokka’s and Katara’s shirts.

In the too-far-off distance, Appa groaned a series of soft sounds.

They all paused. They all broke.

Suki was the last to start weeping.

…

Clumps. The beast was easy enough to track.

Appa recognized Mai well enough to remember Aang being happy— _trusting_ her—when he hung upside-down from her shoulders and laughed that happy sound that made Appa’s world of no bison feel full of new life.

He let her pass but not without groaning a hurried list of what she had to do to help his buddy.

Mai patted Appa’s nose.

Aang was a pathetic bundle of orange in the far corner of the cave. He was a mountain breaking apart, but his tumbling boulders didn’t make a single sound. His words were cut. His voice was obsolete. He pressed himself into the wall like he might get to something better if only he could come out of the other side.

Mai was a shark fin cutting through still water, and she sunk to a seat right beside him. The ground was cold and damp, but he burned so hot that she could feel the licks of his fever from here.

Her sitting down was the placing of a needle onto a spinning record, and his sounds of sorrow finally broke free of him. They bubbled in his throat like blood threatening to drown him, and he coughed when the instinct to survive overrode his waning will to keep breathing.

Mai closed her eyes and emptied her lungs. She touched the bare skin of his back. He flinched like she had struck him, but he didn’t duck away from her.

Mai let her presence fill his silence. Even he didn’t know what he needed, but she kept doing what seemed to be working. Her hand rode the waves of his choked sounds in long, looping circles that lasted as long as the time it took to take two breathes.

His hiccups dulled to whimpers. His sniffles quieted to shivers. He dug his nails out of his arms and scowled like he was struggling to remember.

The apex of her hand’s circle was his inhale, the bottom of the arch guided his air out. She unwound him in every way and through every layer until he released himself and uncurled enough to show some of the yellow of his robes.

Aang bobbed his head like a metronome.

Mai kept scratching long, looping circles on his back.

He huddled into himself with a ghostly small smile and a barely-there hug, and Mai would have startled if she was a weaker woman.

Aang started to hum.

His vibrato was something within him thinning and threatening to break.

When he started to sing, that thing within him frayed.

It broke when he got to the upturned chorus. It was supposed to be a happy song.

Mai hugged her knees with one arm and scratched his back with the other—keeping him alive like a broken music box from a hundred years ago that lost its key and was fighting fate from becoming obsolete.

…

Aang wore his smile like it was something he could take off.

The Blind Bandit ripped it off of him.

The Blue Spirit broke it in half.

The Kyoshi Warrior tossed it into the fire.

The Painted Lady threw its ashes away.

The Swordsman melted it down and forged it into something protective.

The Dangerous Lady kept its daggers in her sleeves and dared someone to hurt him again.

...

Toph sat across from him and didn’t let him be alone.

Zuko walked past his room to remind him that there was a way out.

Suki brought him books with pictures to show him how to feel again.

Katara was his shadow, his shield, and his favorite dancing partner, coaxing his smile to come out and play with hers.

Sokka told him jokes and laughed hard enough for both of them.

(Mai sat with him and listened to everything she didn’t need to know but everything she wanted to learn about his loss.)

...

When Aang was loved, he couldn’t talk fast enough. His past and his future lost meaning. All that mattered was his family right in front of him and the smiles that bellied their every feeling.

They were tattoos that he could never wash off, not that he would ever, ever try.

Five years of wanting were five Fall seasons of feeling lost. Five Fall seasons of searching were five Fall seasons of feeling alone.

Five friends and one love were six members of his second family.

Two brothers a foot taller and three sisters twice as strong as him meant Aang rarely won when they wrestled.

Sokka was safe and familiar as he sat on Aang’s back. Katara shoved him off. Toph laughed and took his place.

Aang walked, almost skipping—so giddy that he was going to spill over—next to them. They went slow on purpose to stretch out the precious journey home, but he didn’t mind. He told them all about his first family and everything he loved about them.

“—it, Zuko! He rode a dragon, once, too! Oh, Katara, you wouldn’t _believe_ —“

Five years and five seasons of dead and dying things meant nothing to them. They almost lost him in the blink of an eye, and they wouldn’t look away ever again.

They were each a stretch of ink tattooed around his heart. They were stronger than stitches. They were a part of him.

They shooed him away so they could pull him closer, and their smiles were challenges to the size of his own.

...

When Aang was hugged, all he knew was love. All of his wants and needs lost meaning. Everything that mattered to him was everyone who held him, and everyone who held him were always there for him before Aang even knew that he needed them.

Their hugs were surprises like finding out the dead were alive.

They surprised him every time. He flinched, however, like he had never done before.

He was trying, though. He was trying.

Him missing family and family missing him were scars that would always be tender.

Tender was okay, though.

The secret was the gooey center.

“...Sometimes...life is like this...t-this dark tunnel,” he told his swallowed shadow, “...C’n’t see the light...but if...if you just keep going...”

His family were already in the prayer field. They looked at him with faces armed with smiles and arms loaded with hugs.

Sokka waved and said something he shouldn’t have and that, even though it made their family laugh, compelled Katara to shove him into the fountain.

The water was cold.

Sokka _screamed_.

Aang froze for a small century. He didn’t breathe for a longer eternity.

...And then Aang laughed.

And Aang cried.

And Aang laughed so hard that he cried.

All Aang cared about were the arms now around him, and all he knew were their soft words spoken over and over.

“We love you.”

“It’s okay.”

“Sokka, you’re a _dumbass_.”

“Oh, shut up.”

The muted smack of a backhand sounded too much like Mai’s for it to be anyone else’s.

Aang laughed a little harder.

He didn’t want to go home, anymore. Home was a memory. Memories couldn’t feel like this.

In their arms, he was finally where he was meant to be.

In their arms, Aang was happy.

In their arms was what home _should_ be.

And when they held him tighter, Aang never felt more wanted in his entire life.

...

And when next Aang needed to speak with him, he found a way.

“Hey, Gyatso,” Aang said, speaking to the person in the mirror who was once a boy, then the Avatar, and now a young man trying to make himself into something that his memories would be proud of. “Did you miss me? You won’t believe this, but Katara _lost_ to me at Pai Sho this morning. She got me back with the fruit pie, though. It even had sea prunes in it...”

Aang talked some more, and he talked fast. The breeze wound into and through the folds of his robes like it was a lounging cat curling into the warm rooms of a new home and new favorite sunny spot. He smiled something brighter than joy and welcomed the windy hugs that could always hold him _just_ tight enough.

When Aang talked to his father, his master’s tattoos lost meaning. The tattoo Gyatso had left behind was so bright that Aang’s eyes watered if he looked thought about it too much.

He talked and talked and _cried_ and talked until he left himself breathless.

It was a strange feeling, being breathless.

His element was suspended away from him, but nothing felt out of his reach.

A body or two (or three) threw themselves at his door.

“ _Twinkletoes!_ ”

“You better not have my lipstick again! I bought you your own for a _reason_!”

“Hurry _up_ , Avatar, we’re going to be late!”

Aang laughed just as the—the _wall_ opened?

Katara lassoed his neck with her arms and threatened to kill him with a kiss that yanked him above the clouds and dropped him into free-fall.

“What...” He blinked. “...I mean I...I-I mean I don’t...” He turned a color and temperature that made Katara smile like he hadn’t seen her do in _far_ too long of a time. “...What do I have to do to get another?”

“ _Ugh._ ” Mai rolled her eyes and pointed down the wide hall of the secret passage. “Just don’t do anything stupid. And don’t be late for the fireworks.”

Aang smirked something evil, and Katara couldn’t help but smile.

The firelilies only looked pretty when Aang had two dozen in one hand and her hand in his other. He kissed her knuckles, offered his arm, and escorted her down the invisible red carpet. She hid her face in his arm and trusted him to keep her from walking into anything.

He laughed.

His empire breathed a sigh of relief.

The anniversary of the new world they built was familiar, but none of them felt home until they met together on the hill.

And nothing felt right until their sickness started acting up again.

“Aang! Get back here!”

“Aw, c’mon, Sifu Hotman! Where’s your sense of fun?”

None of them realized the fireworks were over until the sky got a bit darker and it was time to go home.

Aang was tired. And when Aang was tired, he dragged his feet and spoke in slurred songs. His lyrics found every lost feeling and forgotten meaning. They were long lists of pretty names and precious things, tender to the touch and still healing.

He was tired, happy, and teary-eyed as he sang a diary-entry of their day to the breeze dancing around them.

Four seasons were six loves and two families that would never let him slip away into the season of dead and dying things.

He was their goofy little brother and their grinning parasite. He was a candle left out in the rain.

So they built a fort around him. And they hugged him like they could never hold him tight enough.

And when Aang was at peace, he didn’t say a word. Words were meaningless. They were a constraint. They only meant a certain something.

So he laughed.

And he laughed.

And he laughed.

He laughed even when his family cried, and he laughed harder when they learned to laugh with him.

Six years of found family were six years of found love.

And all six members of his family would never— _never_ —let him Fall again.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the most fun I've had writing in months. I hope you enjoyed it as much I love it, dear reader😊


End file.
